The Current

The Joyful Defiance of the Congresswomen in White at the State of the Union

The congresswomen wore white. At President Trump’s second State of the Union address, a triangular tranche of the House of Representatives stood out in the familiar sea of suits, as if lit by a spotlight: the female members of the 116th Congress, dressed in cream, eggshell, and alabaster, the traditional shades of the suffragette movement. Shown from above, they looked like a slice of wedding cake on a dark tablecloth. When the camera came in low to pan across their faces, they looked like a choir between numbers, murmuring a remark to a neighbor, raising an eyebrow. (Their conductor, Nancy Pelosi, shuffled papers from her station, behind the President, in a pants suit the color of a fresh ream bound for the printer.) Before the Presidential pageantry began, the congresswomen posed on a spiral staircase in two long rows, as if ready to descend, Busby Berkeley style, into the chamber below. You can’t compose an image like that if you don’t have the numbers for it. A hundred and three women are serving in the House of Representatives, which makes the 116th Congress the most female in history, as well as the most diverse. Seated in front of the President, they looked like a battalion: purposeful, united, prepared to fight together against their adversary in the skewed red tie.

Symbolic dressing has become a trend in the past couple of years, at awards shows as well as at political ones. Last year, congresswomen wore black to the State of the Union, as Hollywood actresses did, in the same month, to the Golden Globes, to show support for the #MeToo movement. But the last time white clothes got as much political attention as they did on Tuesday night was on Election Day in 2016, when women wore white to the polls to cast their vote for Hillary Clinton, who had embraced suffragette white on the campaign trail, and had worn a symbolic white suit to her second debate against Trump. (She wore one to his Inauguration, too.) Social media that day was filled with selfies taken by voters in white dresses, T-shirts, and jackets, elated in the belief that they were electing the country’s first female President. As the results came in, and the optimism melted away, that hopeful white came to seem absurd and naïve, even obscene. I was probably not the only person who found it difficult to look at the dopey white dress hanging in her closet, still bearing its wrinkled “I Voted” sticker.

But progress has been made in these past few years, and the white worn by the congresswomen at the State of the Union seemed celebratory as well as defiant. This year marks a century since the Nineteenth Amendment, granting American women the right to vote, was passed by Congress. Some of the congresswomen accessorized their outfits with vintage E.R.A. pins from the nineteen-seventies; that amendment may have failed, but it is heartening to see that its fighting spirit, and funky font, live on. Even Tiffany Trump showed up in a belted white dress, though whether this constituted a message of defiance, or merely an innocent fashion choice, was impossible to say. (Melania and Ivanka Trump avoided misinterpretation by wearing black.)

In 2016, Clinton’s embrace of suffragette white raised questions about the exclusion and prejudice that have marred this country’s women’s movement since Seneca Falls. Given the racism displayed by so many suffragettes, could modern progressive women truly embrace the color? Ayanna Pressley, the congresswoman from Massachusetts, who wore a white coat and carried a kente-cloth clutch, came up with an elegant response. “Tonight, I honor women like #AlicePaul who led the movement & women like #IdaB who were excluded from it,” she wrote on Twitter.

Not far into his speech, Trump began, somewhat ironically, to salute the recent gains made by American women. “No one has benefitted more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled fifty-eight per cent of the new jobs created in the last year,” he said. The congresswomen in white looked at one another dubiously. Was this even true? They started to stand up. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got to her feet. They were going to take Trump’s statement as a compliment. Some of them shimmied, and pumped their fists in the air. Trump, risking an ad-lib, joked, “You weren’t supposed to do that.” More women are in the workplace than ever, he went on. “And we also have more women serving in Congress than at any time before.” Nancy Pelosi, stirring to life, stood and extended her hands to the bloc in white, as if to say, Screw the d.j., but he’s playing our song! The congresswomen again leapt to their feet. A robust, surprising “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” chant started up in their honor. Maybe it was a case of positive cultural appropriation, or subversion, that macho cheer given some new meaning. Anyway, for once, Trump had spoken the truth.

A previous version of this post misstated the amendment that granted women’s suffrage.